The latest in the parade of anti-Russian Syria-centered hoaxes: Someone broke into a social-network account of a wife of a naval officer serving in Sevastopol. The site is a pre-natal one, where the woman was sharing the experience with her ongoing pregnancy. She never posted anything related to her husband’s work there. And then came a post, telling that her husband is off to danger to remote Syria. This post was picked-up, making headlines, while her account got deleted. I watched the interview with the officer in question, who is (big surprise) still in Sevastopol, and I admire his restraint in commenting the outrageous incident that targeted his family.

Also, as Patricia noted in a comment above, even IF this was not a hoax, what were we meant to think reading this news? That “bad Russia” sends its troops to fight against “good ISIS”, which destroys Syria?

Lada, I discovered a wonderful trilogy of films with Georgij Zhzhenov (Георгий Жжёнов). The films are Путь в «Сатурн» (Way into “Saturn”), Конец «Сатурна» (The End of “Saturn”), and Бой после победы (The Battle after the Victory). They are from 1968 and 1972.

The first two films are about integration of a Soviet intelligence officer into German sub-division of Abwehr, “Saturn”, which was preparing saboteurs that were sent out against Soviet union during WWII. But it is the third film that completely fascinated me. WWII ends and the German officers are taken prisoner in the American zone, the Soviet intelligence officer is among them. He is about to disclose himself and return home, but suddenly the German officers are pulled from the POW camp and are formed into a division working on creation of saboteurs on the Soviet-controlled territory, as well as Baltics and Ukraine, by the American friends. And the Soviet officers continues to be undercover collecting information and trying to prevent a large sabotage operation on the day when Berlin is divided. The film is much more nuanced than what I describe here, with both Germans and Americans having fleshed-out human characters.

There is one scene that caught my attention, when one of the Soviet generals in the centre says that, god knows, they did everything in their power to keep Berlin united. That’s in the film from 1972.

Lada, this film is something worth writing an extended article about, as it uncannily seems to echo the events of this year – rather the current result of something that began in 1945.

I found only short fragments of the third film on YouTube, while the first two can be found in full. None of them are, alas, translated.

The fragment below shows the opening and the first minutes of the film, when the retreating German convoy with documents carrying “Saturn’s” archives, learns about Germany’s capitulation.

Thanks for all the great comments, Nemo. The Saturn trilogy sounds very promising.

I had posted WE ARE FROM THE FUTURE on the Rus Films page once, as one of the recommended movies. But it got deleted from YT, so I had to remove the link. Thanks for these new links. Thank goodness for Rutube. 😉

Incidentally, part 2 of this film is – surprise!! – about Banderovtsi ukro-nazis and the stark prediction that there is a danger of them taking over Ukraine. This is the theme as far as I know, since I didn’t see part 2. But I can attest that part 1 is great. At the time part 2 came out in late 2000s, it drew a lot of criticism. The author was blamed for being anti-Ukrainian and accused of prejudice against Ukraine.

Fast-forward just a few short years to 2014 – and what do we have? The movie’s prediction comes true completely; Bandera ukro-nazis take over Ukraine, the whole nine yards. The mentality turnaround of Russia’s young generation, as well as the rise of patriotism and remembrance of the ancestral roots is also a big theme in the film. Don’t know about part 3 (didn’t know it existed), but parts 1 and 2 are intensely prophetic.

My synopsis from the FT’s Russian Films page:

Time Travel/Adventure: We Are From the Future

Rating 4.5 stars. Newer Russian movie, 2008. A fantastic story of time travel by 4 young men, who don’t care about their country’s past and its heroes, and who make money by digging up and selling to foreigners its memory: they find WWII era battlefields and scavenge any trophies they can find.

(The image of the young not caring about their country’s past is deeply symbolic. We can see this condition manifesting in its worst form today in Ukraine.)

During one such treasure hunt, the four young men dig out a war trench, but instead of returning home with valuables, they find themselves in the middle of a real WWII battle, where they first become German prisoners, and later Russian prisoners. Russians eventually believe that they aren’t the enemy, but they have to learn the hard way what their ancestors had to go through during the war.

In the end, they make it back into their time, having learned their lessons – as very different men.